Category: US Military

This probably did not impress the Kim regime too much considering this response has been done before:

A U.S. B-1B Lancer strategic bomber joined a South Korea-U.S. joint air drill Saturday, one day after North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) toward the East Sea, military officials said. 

According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), the supersonic bomber made a sortie over South Korea’s air defense identification zone (KADIZ) escorted by South Korea’s F-35A jets and U.S. F-16 fighters. 

On Friday, North Korea fired a Hwasong-17 ICBM, which is known to carry multiple warheads and have a range of around 15,000 kilometers, long enough to cover the entire U.S. mainland. 

“Through this drill, we have once again demonstrated the joint military capacity of the South Korea-U.S. alliance and Washington’s commitment to protecting the Korean Peninsula and providing extended deterrence,” the JCS said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It should be no surprise that Saudi Arabia is the country paying the most for U.S. military personnel to work for them:

Foreign governments have long advanced their interests in Washington by paying Americans as lobbyists, lawyers, political consultants, think tank analysts and public relations advisers. But the hiring of retired U.S. military personnel for their expertise and political clout has accelerated over the past decade as oil-rich gulf monarchies have splurged on defense spending and strengthened their security partnerships with the Pentagon.

Congress permits retired troops as well as reservists to work for foreign governments if they first obtain approval from their branch of the armed forces and the State Department. But the U.S. government has fought to keep the hirings secret. For years, it withheld virtually all information about the practice, including which countries employ the most retired U.S. service members and how much money is at stake.

To shed light on the matter, The Post sued the Army, the Air Force, the Navy, the Marine Corps and the State Department in federal court under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). After a two-year legal battle, The Post obtained more than 4,000 pages of documents, including case files for about 450 retired soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.

Washington Post

You can read more at the link, but the article did not mention any retired military officials working with South Korea or Japan. It appears to all be governments from the Middle East, Turkey, and Russia. The fact that Korea and Japan has USFK and USFJ probably means they don’t need to hire outside experts like these other countries are doing.

The U.S. is using a standing play from its North Korean provocation playbook by sailing in a U.S. aircraft carrier into the East Sea. This time they are doing it shortly after it already completed an exercise there:

The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan is redeploying to South Korea’s eastern coast less than a week after it concluded trilateral naval drills with South Korean and Japanese warships.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff in a press release Wednesday said the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group would be entering international waters in the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan, on the same day due to “highly unusual” timing of North Korea’s activities.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

The Pentagon’s independent commission has released what the names of Army bases named after Confederate generals will now be:

The Army will now have bases named after women and African Americans if Congress and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin approve the recommendations offered Tuesday by an independent commission assigned to make the selections. 

Congress mandated last year that an appointed Naming Commission come up with potential new names for nine Army installations that now honor Confederate generals from the Civil War. 

The nine bases are all in former Confederate states and were named during the 1910s and 1940s amid the South’s Jim Crow era.

Stars & Stripes

Here is what the new names are:

— Fort Bragg, N.C., to Fort Liberty

— Fort Polk, La., to Fort Johnson after Sgt. William Henry Johnson

— Fort Benning, Ga., to Fort Moore for Lt. Gen. Hal and Julia Moore

— Fort Gordon, Ga., to Fort Eisenhower for former President Dwight Eisenhower

— Fort A.P. Hill, Va., to Fort Walker after Dr. Mary Walker

— Fort Hood, Texas, to Fort Cavazos after Gen. Richard Cavazos

— Fort Pickett, Va., to Fort Barfoot for Tech. Sgt. Van T. Barfoot

— Fort Rucker, Ala., to Fort Novosel after Chief Warrant Officer 4 Michael J. Novosel, Sr

— Fort Lee, Va., to Fort Gregg-Adams after Lt. Gen. Arthur Gregg and Lt. Col. Charity Adams

It will definitely take some time to get used to these new names, but after a decade most people will likely forget what the old names were. My favorites on this list are probably Fort Moore and Fort Eisenhower. Both are definitely worthy of a base named after them. Fort Johnson is another good one because any other military hero is better than having a base named after Polk who was an extremely poor leader during the Civil War.

This seems like quite a stretch to me because I doubt whether or not someone can have an abortion will play any role on whether someone wants to join the military:

U.S. troops could see their access to abortion severely curtailed if the Supreme Court overturns its landmark ruling on reproductive rights, potentially hurting military recruitment and the retention of women.

As employees of the federal government, doctors on military bases are already banned from performing abortions so female troops — and the female spouses of troops — must seek out the procedure on their own. That would become much more difficult if the Supreme Court overturns the precedent set in its Roe v. Wade ruling almost five decades ago, as a leaked draft ruling indicates it’s likely to do.

At least 26 states probably would place restrictions on abortion laws, including Texas, Florida and other southern states that have many of the nation’s military bases, according to Sean Timmons, a managing partner at Tulley Rinckey who specializes in military law.

The potential impact on recruitment and retention would come as the military is already struggling to find qualified troops. Women make up almost 20% of the 1.3 million-member active-duty force.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

If you are in the military be careful what you like on social media because it could come back to haunt you:

Some activity barred by the new rules may be simpler to root out than others, he acknowledged. For example, the rules ban service members from sporting clothing, tattoos or other paraphernalia promoting extremism, financially supporting an extremist cause or distributing extremist literature or materials. 

However, service members could also be punished for their online actions, including posting, sharing or “liking” materials that “promote or otherwise endorse extremist activities” on the internet.

That is where a commanders’ discretion will be most important, Kirby said, noting that a service member, perhaps, could “like” a social media post by accident.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

This could get interesting if troops that received the first two vaccines shots decide to not get the booster. Will the military punish them like what has been done to unvaccinated personnel?:

The Pentagon said Friday that there are “active discussions” within the department about making the COVID-19 vaccine booster shots mandatory for service members, even as thousands refuse or seek exemptions from the initial shot requirement.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said there have been no final decisions on the matter, but added that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin “absolutely encourages people, if they can and if they qualify, to get the booster. But right now there is no requirement for it.”

The defense department in August announced that it would begin requiring all members of the military — including National Guard and Reserves — to get the COVID-19 vaccine. The military services sent out specific guidelines on the mandate, set their own deadlines and laid out the repercussions for those who refused and were not granted a medical, religious or administrative exemption.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

This week people are remembering the Pearl Harbor bombing, but for many military families on Hawaii they are just trying to find a place to take a shower due to the massive water contamination crisis hitting military communities there:

Gov. David Ige and Hawaii’s congressional delegation on Sunday called for the Navy to suspend its Red Hill fuel storage operation until its drinking water contamination crisis is handled.

The Navy on Thursday said recent testing of its Red Hill well detected the presence of petroleum contaminants. Hundreds of military and nonmilitary users of the Navy’s water system last week complained of a strong fuel odor in the water, including some who reported feeling ill or having pets who became sick after drinking water.

Ige and U.S. Sens. Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono, and Reps. Ed Case and Kai Kahele, all Democrats, released a joint statement calling for the Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro, who is in Hawaii for the 80th anniversary of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, to suspend Red Hill operations in the aftermath of the contamination of drinking water at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam and surrounding areas.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but the military is handing out bottle water for drinking and showering as well as moving families into available hotels.

Instead of going the Chapter route to remove non-vaccinated Soldiers from the ranks, the Army has instead decided to flag them, deny them promotions, and bar reenlistments:

The Army won’t promote or reenlist troops who refuse the coronavirus vaccine and who haven’t requested an exemption, according to a memo from the service’s top civilian leader.

The new rules apply to active-duty, Reserve and National Guard troops, including those in at least one state where the governor doesn’t require the vaccine.

Army Secretary Christine Wormuth in a Nov. 16 memo lays out what will happen if soldiers refuse the vaccine and don’t have an exemption request pending. They will have their records flagged the day they make their final vaccine refusal, after a meeting with a medical professional and a second order to get vaccinated.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but an interesting stat in the article is that about 72% of the Army is completely vaccinated. With the end of the war in Afghanistan I would not be surprised if another drawdown is coming and the non-vaccinated is turning into a way for the Army to cut its numbers.

As I have long said, when DOD instituted the Blended Retirement System a few years ago, it was the first step to eventually doing away with the fixed military retirement system. This latest report will be used to further justify moving military retirement totally to a Thrift Savings Plan model:

Military leaders will need to make some difficult choices on pay and benefits in coming years if they want to maintain funding needed to keep up force readiness and end strength, a panel of defense experts said on Tuesday.

“We need to focus [military] benefits on those currently serving, but the problem is most of the benefits now have shifted to those no longer serving,” said Arnold Punaro, former staff director for the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“There are 2.4 million retirees [receiving benefits] compared to 1.3 million active -duty troops getting them … The deferred piece of military spending has to be dealt with.”

Purnaro’s comments came at a roundtable event on military challenges organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Other panelists echoed his concerns about personnel costs continuing to rise within the Defense Department even as the services’ end strengths have declined. Earlier this fall, CSIS released a report noting that the number of active-duty troops fell by more than 64 percent from 1952 to 2016, but total DOD personnel spending rose by 110 percent over the same period.

Army Times

You can read more at the link.